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VADER (Pol) De profundis CD'95 IMPACT Recs.
In my opinion, it's by far the best VADER release! More expressive and efficient than their first one, and far from their wanna be fast and quite uninspired following albums that didn't do much for me!
It seems to me the success has one more time perished the inspiration and quality of a good band's music! Even if this album isn't as fast and in a Death/ Thrashing grind style as the "Morbid Reich" Demo, it was just their most intense effort! Their tracks were simply very well done with enough great variations to keep your attention more than fucking awaken!
Full of frenesy vocals that makes you feel on the very top of the highest mountains of a desert land! Good old school SLAYER influences in the riffings and for some breaks! Good riffs that were done and thought to hypnotize your skull! Some old school Death metal influences à la POSSESSED can be felt here!
It may remind me of old BRUTALITY by moments. Small technical touches in the breaks that make it more interesting. Old school metal leads that are both simple and chaotic ( à la old SLAYER) or more melodic.
There are here some very good Death metal tracks any Death metal head should hear at least one time in it's life!
http://www.vader.pl

VADER (Pol) Litany CD'00 METAL BLADE.
Vader, it's the living proof than in the metal scene, to become a cult band, you only need to move your ass and to tour a lot. Because even if Vader was nice enough this time to boost the thing and to play a music that's a bit more energic than usual, it doesn't reach the level of what will make the biggest Grinders cum! Some Morbid Angel without the intensity, as a whole it's the only thing VADER can offer with this release. It's well done and it's fast, that's certain, but where are they going? That's a mystery... Maybe a more nervous singer would help them to sound less repetitive? Anyway, I can't stand more than half the album. An in anyway, after two tracks you ever know the remaining of the CD!
                                                                                            Pierre

VAI-TE FODER (Por) Poço CD. 2017. MURDER Recs. HELLD PROD Recs.
This brutalizing orchestra located in the north of Portugal comes with a band name that's easy to understand: In Portuguese it means "FUCK YOU!" AhAh.
Their style mixes crust punk, grindcore with elements of hardcore and even crossover thrash... This is a quite cinderblock throwing mix.
During the listening, I happened to think about NAPALM DEATH in grind parts, DISRUPT in crust parts, or perhaps DISFEAR in more "rock'n roll" touches... (But maybe it's not representative of the whole)
Globally this sounds like a quite energetic mix of all the quite kicking "core" styles you could find in the 80's and early 90's (Minus the post Hc stuffs, or the sludge style, if you consider this to have emerged from Hc).
On one hand, the riffing is a bit classical in the style, on the other hand it's quite well compacted/ structured, and there are some great riffs here & there.
As always with this type of bands that mix grindcore and crust and other "fast only" types of HC, I feel like there's not enough of blast beats AhAh...
Cool cover artwork à la "Scum".
Due to the global quality of this album, I would say it could please the needs of those who dig old school grind'n crust'n punk Hc. VAI-TE FODER could be a kicking live band! Send me bootleg VHS tapes housed between two big bricks to verify! (Or don't do it, postage would be too expensive AhAh... POSTAGE BRICK SUICIDE)
https://vaitefodercrust.bandcamp.com

VENGEANCE (Pol) Sewer surge CD. 2023. DYING VICTIMS Recs.
It seems the old school never ends! With the appearance of more bands digging deeper and deeper in the past, to sound closer to the earliest incarnations of metal every month.
Here we have VENGEANCE from Warsaw/ Wroclaw, Poland, which plays a mix of early speed/ heavy/ thrash that really tastes like early 80's. Roughly their music sounds like a cocktail of the first speed thrash bands, with a shovel of speed 'n rock'n roll ugly MOTÖRHEAD, and a good dose of 80's heavy metal.
Listeners with a more or less experienced hear in the old might feel similarities with VENOM (Rather "Black metal"), old MOTÖRHEAD (For the vocals and some riffs), EXODUS (First album), TANK (For the rock'n roll), CARNIVORE (For the "street" aspect)... Then maybe BULLDOZER ("The final separation"), old AGENT STEEL, and other clearly more heavy metal bands I won't quote (I have to stop the name dropping machine here, it consumes too much of gas).
The music of the band isn't "brutally spectacular" at first hear: This isn't violent raw thrash, and the production is quite "modest" (Or natural), but the atmosphere you can find here counterbalances, and there are nice guitar parts.
In some riffs I find a very nostalgic feeling that due to some darkness leads me back to VENOM's second album... Then in some heavy metal parts the mood is closer to MERCYFUL FATE's first album "Melissa".
It's a bit hard for me to conclude clearly this review as I'm not the biggest heavy or speed expert, and I'm used to listen to a bit more "violent" music... But I hear qualities in there which could please fans of early heavy/ speed/ thrash coming with a quite dark atmosphere.
If I was speaking polish, I could end this review with something like "zemsta ciemnosci i krwi", but it's not the case and I used google translate to transcribe "Vengeance of darkness and blood" in this language...
https://www.facebook.com/fkn.vng

VENUS TORMENT (Chile) The overdose of suffering Tape. 2016. FISTBANG Recs.
This Chilean band isn't really new since a couple of demos were released before, but this is still quite ripping thrashing metal.
Even if a part of you putrid readers probably heard about the band before (This album was released on CD and Lp by IRON PEGASUS recs, so it's not totally obscure anymore), I will anyway write some kind of description, because it's easy to do (Ah!), and it's quite cool...
In no banging order of preference, during the listening I used to think about ooold KREATOR (Perhaps "Pleasure to kill"/ "Terrible certainty", but not THAT much of the second), early MERCILESS (Sweden/ First album), old SLAYER (Rather "Reign in blood"), old POSSESSED (I would say "Seven churches" but not the most totally DM songs, even if death metal influences appear the style of Venus Torment is rather about thrash), then perhaps a little of early DARKNESS (Ger)...
There are quite a lot of fast, kicking/ Thrashing riffs, but the riffs/ tempo changes are more numerous than for average thrash, then there are also more epic tremolo riffs.
The more you insert the skull in the analog, the more the tape shows little more varied influences: Some 80's speed metal riffing here, a couple of early heavy metal influences here, a bit of very early technical stuffs à la ooold DEATH ("Leprozy"/ "Spiritual healing"), and even a bit of punk.
So the whole remains varied enough, it's not the same thrashing riffs all the way.
VENUS TORMENT is almost a solo project, as the main musician plays everything (Except the drums), well you wouldn't notice since it doesn't sound cold or sterile in the playing.
This is a quite good sounding and kicking tape, I can't guarantee if every putrid readers will find this recording to be absolutely kicking or mind obliterating (After all it's not only a matter of tastes: Someone to be 85% deaf might not hear the same riffs than a banger with fresh hears... Ah Ah) but it's a quite good recording, so fans of the style who are subject to underground attraction should try it. Quite original band name for thrash by the way.
https://venustorment.bandcamp.com

VERMINOUS (Swe) Smell the birth of death Ep'03 NUCLEAR WINTER.
Emerging from the old skool as fukk Swedish obscure Underground, VERMINOUS plays total old skool Death metal! This is fukking fast as the tempo reminds me of MERCILESS' 1st LP "The awakening" but the style is more into the putrid lines of Nekro Death metal: REPUGNANT, KAAMOS, POSSESSED (old), UNLEASHED (old), SEPULTURA (very old) with small touches of BESTIAL WARLUST, SARCOFAGO, DETERIORATE (1st Lp) and old ANGEL CORPSE! Kontrary to a bunch of old skool Death bands, they doesn't sound asleep!
The kuite dynamik aspekt of their tremolo ridden Death reminds me of KAAMOS! Spiked fist fukking of the poser! Bleed now bastard!
I'm not so much into their stuffs (a bit too fast in the temp Death metal parts...), but that may sound katchy and it's kompressed morbid sounding Death metal with a bunch of nicely placed breaks and morbidly pakkaged trakks that kould please the fans of KAAMOS, REPUGNANT and Nekro Death metal!
http://www.verminous.com

VERMINOUS (Swe) Impious sacrilege CD'03. XTREEM MUSIC.
Black putrefaction, obscure cancerous semen and malignant pus! Pure fucking Death invades the minds of the filthy morons to grind their overwhelming stupidity to celestial dust! Brutality will prevail! Imagine a good mix of REPUGNANT (for the fast as fuck old school), ABSCESS (for the dirty as fuck deadly putridity), KAAMOS (for some energetik as fuck rotten energy) and other morbidly reincarnating early Death-thrashing metal entities such as early MERCILESS (Swe), NIHILIST/ ENTOMBED, old UNLEASHED and you have the right fatal portrait of the way this "Impious sacrilege" hatefully devours your flesh! This album vomits the inhuman filth of the deepest ancient abyss during 10 fast as fuck tracks that has severe torturing and bloody chances to kick the bottoms of old school Death metal fanatics who like it fast as fuck and undergroundly necro-perverted!
This might not be a long-time standing classic album since I didn't detect real Death metal hymns, and there's nothing that new, but VERMINOUS is worth listening and hailing for sure! OLD SCHOOL WILL PREVAIL!!
http://www.verminous.com

VEXED (Ita) Nightmare holocaust CD'03 WITCHES BREW Recs.
From Italy comes this blackthrashing act. If you are into GROTESQUE, I think that VEXED might please you, ‘cos it has this little aggressive swedish old school touch. Of course, the dudes have also listened to SLAYER and all the old thrash metal masters. Well two things are not of my taste on this record. First, the production, because it lacks too much of bass, which tends to affect the power of the music. Second, the guys felt like they had to cover SODOM’s “Blasphemer”… Well after LUCIFERION, which did a killer cover, and numerous ug acts which covered this song, I guess that VEXED could have chosen something else from SODOM or other old thrash metal gods to cover. It doesn’t sound bad, but it’s used to death, and brings actually nothing to the album. But there are things that I enjoy on this album, like the riffing, which is very aggressive and reminds DESTRUCTION, GROTESQUE, and also the vocals, which are very hysterical between Schmier and Tom Angelripper in the early days, in a more high pitched version. I also find that the song “warcorpse machine” which is an instrumental with electronic sounds  sounds abit like a filler as it’s a bit too long for my taste and doesn’t bring anything very essential to the album. All in all, it’s a quite good album which has its moments, but I think I’d rather go for TOXIC HOLOCAUST, which is signed on the same label. Still I think that future releases of VEXED might bring some cool headbanging shit to my metallic ears! Give it a try before getting it.
Cuntact: http://www.witches-brew.org

                                                                                             Nathaniel

VIA MISTICA (Pol) Testamentum (In hora mortis nostre) CD'03 METAL MIND.
Poland. Melodic heavy doom. Good sounding female vocals. Few black metal vocals. Kinda like old TYPE O NEGATIVE + mid old PARADISE LOST... (Insert your blah blah here: ...). It sounds Ok, the female vocals sound quite good and clear, the tracks are correctly done, but I found no highlight nor any part that would remain engraved in my head and soul. Average music and ininterested listener!

VIKING CROWN (Usa) Banished Rhythmic Hate CD'01 SEASONS OF MIST.
Once some musicians get a bit of recognition and some good relationships with labels, it's so easy for them to record any crap project and release it! Every kind of fart or vaguely musical flatulence will be recorded! This album is nothing more than fart! But who gives a fuck about the farts of Phil Anselmo or Killjoy? Bad Black thrash metal with a horrible sound! Simplistic every heard as fuck riffs, common song structures! Cliché! Boring drum-machine! Cliché! The vocals seem like the guy imitates Dead. There are many boring interludes that don’t turn my slip inside out! Fuck that pure crap!
It sounds like the some demos, but we are in 2003! Wake up and face the bloody truth: the music in itself is boring and it sucks even more when you think it was released as a pro CD on a quite big label!
I can understand some guys play such kind of projects for themselves, but no one apart from the stupid PANTERA groupies will ever need to buy and listen to this!! It doesn't fly above the poorest pieces of shit any dog have shitted on the ground! Send them your excrements!!

VIRULENT (HOL) Under the hex of Amdusius MCD'00 SKULLCRUSHER.
Nice choice for the cover: a painting by John Martin, a good apocalyptic and deeply expressive painter from the 19th century!
To my ears they sound like a mix between old MORBID ANGEL, CENTURIAN and ANGEL CORPSE with an old Death/thrash touch.
A riff reminds me of ATROCITY's "Hallucinations" CD, but they aren't into the kind of bizarre techno death metal the germans played.
The death metal vocals aren't very deep and sounds sometimes almost thrashy, but it was done to sound like David Vincent on the two first MORBID ANGEL albums. By moments, the vocalist also made me think about ANGEL CORPSE's vocalized scorched satanic cults. Some quite complex riffs mixed with some blast parts and some of the vocals mentionned before make them sound even more like ANGEL CORPSE (2nd and 3rd CDs).
They have got a dark and occult touch reminding me a bit of EQUINOX's first CD. There are some old NILE sounding like harmonies in some mid placed tremolo riffs. But they also have got a few riffs influenced by the new MORBID ANGEL's albums. After all these wors that may have lost you, here's a sharper conclusion: This is Death/ Grind with some old school touch and it can be cool for the big fans, even though nothing really good is present here. An Ok MCD!

VIRULENT (HOL) Azoth MCD'02
I like the cover, it reminds me an introspective and irrealistic painting I did. The band is still playing a Death/grind influenced by old MORBID ANGEL/ CENTURIAN. The sound lacks a bit in heaviness compared to their previous MCD "Under the hex of Amdusius" though.  On this one, the drumming + the drums" sound reminds me of CENTURIAN's "...Of purest fire" Demo CD'98.
The skullfull vokills doesn't sound anymore like ANGEL CORPSE's but it's now more in the classical David Vincent ("Domination")/ CENTURIAN vein. Notice the arrival of some fast raging black metal on a riff. I prefered a bit their previous MCD, but this one includes less songs (it's more a CD single), and so it's not very easy to judge their musical evolution. Check out the review of their MCD'00 to get more infos! Anyway this is still an Ok band with nicely constructed songs! Still can be cool for Death metal fans.
http://go.to/virulent

VITAL REMAINS (Usa) Let us pray CD'92 Peaceville.
First album of the americans, "Let us pray" doesn't shine for its personality. Bound somewhere between Nocturnus for keyboards (that remains not too oftenly used), and the Tampa scène (the oriental melodies à la DEATH on the first track, the rythmics à la MORBID ANGEL), VITAL REMAINS looses itself in its own structures, melting some average parts with some really bad ones (leads are pathetic), and we don't know where they are going... The tracks, all being between 5 and 7 minutes, are really to long for what that bands has to say, and it's very painfull to listen to a track until its end without needing to switch to the next one to see if it's not a bit better. But the next one, even if it's sometimes better, is never good. Do yourself a favor, and avoid to loose 56 minutes of your life.         Pierre

VITAL REMAINS (USa) Forever underground CD'97 Osmose.
3 years of break, a totally new line up, and VITAL REMAINS is back with an album nobody would have awaited from them/ "Forever underground" is one of these albums that have shown, these last 5 ears, Death metal hasn't said its lastest words and it's still possible to make evolve a music known for its quasi sterility. As they went back to the sources of Death ( thinking about SLAYER, POSSESSED and mainly MASSACRE), VITAL REMAINS comes back to the long and complex tracks of its first album, but they discover a given sense of the efficiency (The very Hardcore like cymbal playing on "Battleground" for exemple) and of the crushing riff. Not many bands are able to do so long tracks without being boring, but VITAL REMAINS deals wuite well with it without using an incredible amount of riffs. A few new sounds (Very inspired from Black metal keyboards, acoustic guitars), well felt blast beats, well placed vocals, in short words, an album with an immediate charm that longs. It's destined to become somekind of classic.     Pierre

VITAL REMAINS (USa) Dawn of the apocalypse CD'99 Osmose.
This review could be made in only one word: Deception. The excellent "Forever underground" will only have been a good and almost unvolonteer surprise, and Vital remains was caught back by it's sins if youth. 'Dawn of the apocalypse" is without any doubt the faster and most brutal album of the americans, but if Blast beats were enough to make Death metal passionating, we all would know this since years and years... "Dawn of the apocalypse" lacks what all the bad albums miss: some good riffs, and their presence is the needed but not sufficient condition for the succeed in the composition of a  good album. And as the tracks are always 10 minutes long, I want to sleep, even if this is tighly played and if the little gimmicks of the band haven't disappeared (a bit of classic guitar, some parts with a very Black metal mood). The new vocalist does quite well his job, but it's not sufficiently interesting to save VITAL REMAINS from the desaster, and even if the tracks are quite interesting by moments, there are no highlight, none keeps you attracted from its beginning to its end. I told you it was a deception...                                                                                            Pierre

VOODOOCULT (USA) Jesus killing machine CD'94 MOTOR
This album counts the following musicians: Dave Lombardo, Chuck Shuldiner, Waldemar Sorychta and Mille Petrozza plus others I didn’t know before.
A part of it ( the tracks ritten by W. Sorychta) really sounds like the 1st GRIP INC CD « The power of inner strength », and it’s the best sounding tracks on the CD in my opinion, these 3 tracks are quite cool.
The remaining is most classical and common heavy thrash with some faster parts and let’s say it more « punkish » moments, and I must say it not really good, it even touches my metallic boredom! It lacks of energy!
I don’t find it being a very memorable CD as I’ve got the feeling most of the guest musicans present here only did their « job »  with any personnal involvement and the found member of this project invited all these « extreme metal celebrities » to give some more promotional impact to its CD! Good relations helps a lot!

VOMITORY (Swe) Revelation Nausea CD'00 Hammerheart.
“ Throw Angel corpse and Marduk in the thrashcan ” said Holy records about this album. Not much is needed to awake the attention of the most de hard brutallizers like me, all the more I often saw the guys of DERANGED with Tshirts of this band. Even if this quote is, as always in all the French metal distributors, exagerated, I must say the band isn't bad. And the comparison is well thought. Because even if VOMITORY is considerably less savage then ANGEL CORPSE, they also own as the band of Jene Palubicki some Black metal touches that can distinguish them a bit from the mass of ultra fast Death bands. Our swedish bastards doesn't hesitate to slow down the temp, for exemple during a "Beneath the soil" that's well done, that evocates as much the "Woman of dark desires" of BATHORY as well as OBITUARY or BRUTAL TRUTH at the time of "Extreme conditions..." on some parts of the track.
So this is a band with a relatively varied style, that doesn't hesitate to take influences in all the really extreme styles to feed its carnage, and they've got a good sense of dynamic and construction. The little Grindcore touches bring the groove addition that brings a soul to the record, and VOMITORY lacks only some really catchy vocals' parts to join the bigger level in the scene. Very encouraging.
http://www.vomitory.net     Pierre 

VONDUR (Swe) The galactic rock'n roll empire MCD'98 NECROPOLIS.
Here's a pseudo Black metal project that does here badly played covers of BATHORY, JUDAS PRIEST...  It's one more useless CD which goal is only to make cash! $$$!    

VORE (Usa) Lord of storms CD'01 FROZEN SOLID MUSIC.
I imagined they were playing hyperfast, technical as fuck and dark futuristic American style Brutal Death, I was just surprised... Their style is rather mid placed, very much à la old OBITUARY/ DEICIDE! With some double bass drums and reminicences of Heavy Cannibal Corpse.
IT's just slow and very simple in parts, for this reason it would make me think about some SIX FEET UNDER's stuffs... or even JUNGLE ROT (but it's less groovy). Point OBITUARY, shoot "Back from the dead", and you get a part of it!
It sounds quite heavy, and no riff really sucks, but I found no urge on testosterone and nothing memorable. Just average old Death metal stuffs with Ok arrangements... While old the OBITUARY's demos still makes me thrill and hallucinate on the old school obscure feeling, VORE makes me feel nothing.
http://www.vore.org                     

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